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POP REVIEW; Love Songs And Other Delights From Brazil

Pop needs popularizers, the musicians who pull lesser-known idioms into the mainstream. But the most effective popularizers end up making themselves obsolete; once they've made clear that a style is accessible, listeners can go to the source and skip the middleman. In the 1960's, Sergio Mendes prolonged America's affection for the bossa nova by meshing Brazilian rhythms with songs like ''Fool on the Hill'' and ''The Look of Love.'' More recently, on albums including ''Brasileiro'' (Elektra) and ''Oceano'' (Verve Forecast), he has drawn his material from Brazil's best songwriters. That makes Sergio Mendes and Brasil '99, who opened a five-night stand at the Blue Note on Tuesday night, a pleasant cover band with a sure-fire repertory.

Mr. Mendes's first set on Tuesday included songs by Caetano Veloso, Carlinhos Brown, Ivan Lins, Hermeto Pascoal and Antonio Carlos Jobim. There were love songs and songs about Brazil's heritage and its pleasures. The band, with Mr. Mendes on keyboards, was supple and precise as it traversed and blended regional rhythms: samba and bossa nova from Rio de Janeiro, samba reggae and afoxe from Bahia. The percussion marched and swished and sputtered; guitar and keyboards sailed through the harmonies, only occasionally adding saccharine string-section tones. When songs moved into odd time signatures, they still had an irresistible lilt.

The weakness was in the band's vocals. Mr. Mendes has always chosen airy, insubstantial female voices, and his two current singers are no exceptions.

Together they delivered the melodies smoothly, with a minimum of personality; individually, they were only adequate. Compared with the songs' originators or to interpreters like Gal Costa, all of whom are familiar to American fans of Brazilian music, Brasil '99 was mere easy listening.